


Confession; Apology

by DaScribbla



Series: Red [5]
Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Gore, Multi, mild physical abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 11:03:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6563668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaScribbla/pseuds/DaScribbla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things went awry in Istanbul, and Richard must do damage control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confession; Apology

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are again! Just a warning, things are starting to fall apart. If you didn't read the tags, just be aware that this is Not a Happy Fic.  
> If you notice Casino Royale similarities at one point, it's completely intentional.  
> Shout-out as ever to inanesanity/mjolnir-s-master for beta'ing and putting up with all my compulsive headcanoning!

The woman in the hotel lobby noticed Jed glancing at the baby in her arms and smiled.

“Do you want to hold her? Everyone wants to hold her,” she said. “Number one rule of babies -- everyone is your new best friend.” Jed smiled and shook her head.

“No, thank you. How old is... ?”

“She’s about six months,” the woman said. Jed would have replied, except Corky at that moment arrived from the elevator with his phone.

“Gotten word from the man himself,” he said, meeting her at her chair. “We have a flight to catch. Better get upstairs and pack.”

He seemed to have given up on insults in favor of a cold, curt tone that Jed much preferred. Or perhaps he was steering clear of being downright abusive because of the woman with the baby. She nodded, murmured an excuse to the woman, and stood.Her dress stuck a little to her legs in the heat.

“Where to?”

“Didn’t specify,” Corky said. “Said the pilot had instructions. Although frankly,” he added, catching her arm and lowering his voice, “I wouldn’t ask too many questions. Apparently, a few things went awry in Istanbul while we were sleeping. Might want to warn loverboy before he gets in too deep.”

She shook him off and didn’t dignify any of what he’d said with comment.  

_I always do what I’m told_ , she thought as the gleaming elevator doors slid shut behind her. _No matter what it is, I just follow the leader._

 

Now they descended into a hot, dry world of yellow and gold -- although the gold, as Jed now knew, lay not in the sand, but in the weaponry concealed beneath tarps.

Richard was there to greet her and hand her out of the helicopter, and it was a relief to see a familiar face among the crowd of men -- no other woman than herself in sight. Immediately she was struck by the self-consciousness she hated. She didn’t mind being the only woman for Richard and Jonathan. In that, there was power. But in an entire camp full of men who had only seen each other for so long, she felt no power at all. They were devouring her with their eyes and suddenly she realized what this was. 

_Am I a statement for you?_ she thought, gazing at Richard as she stepped into the sand. _Look what I have, look what you can’t touch? Is that was this is?_

Jonathan was nearby, dressed in fatigues and a t-shirt. He nodded stoically to her and then pointedly looked away as Corky exited the helicopter behind Jed. 

“It’s good to see you again,” Richard was saying. She kissed him swiftly.

“You too. I just wish I knew why I was here,” she added in a quieter tone. 

“Later,” said Richard, with a smile, but she saw the stormier look in his eyes. _A few things went awry in Istanbul_ , she remembered Corky saying. It took all her willpower not to look at Jonathan again. He was following behind -- beside Corky, but he was there. That would have to be enough for now. 

 

They were having tea now, and the image struck Jed as more than a little bizarre -- quaint English customs in the middle of a bloody desert. Corky sat beside her, across from Jonathan, who was making every effort to avoid making eye contact with him. 

“Good god, you all are somber as widows,” Richard said harshly from the head of the table. She flinched. Something had clearly gone wrong; he rarely raised his voice to her. And she’d never heard him do it to Jonathan before. Jonathan raised his mug to his lips and took a long sip. There was a neat, reddish mark that stretched around each of his wrists. Corky’s eyes latched onto the movement, and after Richard was torn away from the table by a muscular man in fatigues who had given Jed a long and hungry glance, he opened his mouth. Jed looked away immediately.

“What happened to your wrists, Andrew?”

“None of your fucking business.” 

Corky sat back and gave him a look of pretend shock.

“This environment’s been a bad influence on you,” he said. “Using that kind of language around a lady. Or, well --” He glanced at her. “Nevermind. There’s just Jed.”

She kept completely still but didn’t miss the shudder that coursed through Jonathan’s body, or how his hands gripped the mug hard enough she was afraid he’d break it. His eyes blazed. 

“Corky,” he said in a warning tone, but Jed shook her head at him almost imperceptibly. _Please. Please don’t. It isn’t worth this_.

The fire in his eyes cooled a little, but his knuckles remained white through the rest of their time at the table.

 

“Tell me he hasn’t been doing this since you went to Florida,” Jonathan said the moment they had a chance to be alone, behind one of the trucks. “Just tell me that.”

“I could, but I’d be lying.” 

“Oh god.” He pulled her close, pressing his lips into her shoulder. “Jed…”

“It’s fine -- well, no,” she amended. “It’s _not_ fine. I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind if I had to stay with him any longer.”

“Is that why you called me?” She nodded and he pulled her closer against himself. “I’m so sorry. My -- my employers -- they tapped my hotel phone…”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” she said. “I don’t want to think about it.” Then she sighed. “God, I _needed_ you.”

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed. “I’m so, so sorry. This whole thing…” He trailed off as one of the men passed by. “... it’s gotten so out of control.” A long silence fell as they simply held each other. “How did this happen to us?”

“I don’t know,” Jed whispered. “I want to go back to normal. I miss being oblivious.” 

 

Inside Richard’s tent that evening, she finally got a moment to speak with him alone.

“Please tell me why I’m here,” she said, sitting on the bed and crossing her arms. Richard didn’t immediately respond, staring down at the paperwork in front of him on his makeshift desk. “ _Richard_.” Finally, he looked up, a look of expectation on his face. “I’m the only woman in this entire camp.” Quietly, Jonathan slipped inside, moving towards Richard but then stopping once he noticed the chilly atmosphere. “Do you realize how humiliating that is? There had better be a -- be a damn good reason for this.”

Richard put the papers away and went to where she was seated. He cupped her cheek with one hand.

“There _is_ a damn good reason,” he said. “Some information about what I do, quite important, has gone astray.” He was playing with her earlobe now, rubbing it gently between his thumb and forefinger. Something about it, along with his entirely calm demeanor, disturbed her. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you, Jed?”

“How could I?” she said, willing herself once more not to look at Jonathan. “I barely know _what_ you do.” But panic was starting to rise in her -- she’d played in the deep water and now was getting pulled into the silty mess at the bottom, her oxygen running out.

“Look what you’ve seen today,” said Richard. “Have a guess. Have two, if you like.”

Jonathan was still standing at the back of the tent, completely still, and Jed realized with a sick jolt that he would be unable to do anything if this went wrong. He would have to sit back and let it happen, or his own plans would collapse. Like it or not, she was expendable to them both. 

“Okay,” she said, a little shakily. “Maybe I know what you do. I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” Now beginning to tug gently on her lobe, Richard fixed her with an appraising eye.

“Someone photographed some rather important documents and gave them to people who don’t appreciate my work,” he said. “Now, Jed, I want --” He paused. “I _need_ you to be honest with me. Did you break into my office, at any time, while we were at Mallorca?”

“Richard --”

“Richard,” came Jonathan’s voice -- at last -- from the back, “why are you certain that it was her?”

“I’m not,” said Richard, twisting his neck to look back at him. “I just need to cover my bases.” He turned back to Jed. “I need to _you_ to be honest. Did you go into my office?”

She didn’t know what to do -- stay silent, admit to something she hadn’t done and take the fall for it, or deny everything and risk putting Jonathan in danger? The tears came to her eyes very easily, all her vocabulary sticking in her throat. Staring up at Richard, her mouth opened and closed in one uncertain syllable.

Something twisted in Richard’s face, a cold look arrived in his eyes, and he slapped her across the face. Hard enough to whip her head to the side. 

It was as if everything happened at once: Jonathan cried out in protest, Richard snapped at him to leave the tent, and the lights went out. Jed was left blinking in outraged shock, the right side of her face throbbing. 

_You’re no better than any of the other bastards I’ve fucked,_ she thought. _You just have better suits and a nicer smile._

One of the men from the camp opened the tent flap, holding a flashlight. 

“What’s the hell’s happened to the power?” Richard demanded.

“I’m sorry, sir. Problems with the generator,” he said. “We’ll have it fixed soon.” Richard grunted and turned back to Jed, who realized the anger in his expression as the power guttered back to life. On an instinct born from countless unpredictable lovers and volatile boyfriends, she shrank back. 

“Just tell me what you did,” he said. Jed brought a hand to the throbbing side of her face. In spite of herself -- no, no, _no_ , she couldn’t weep in front of him, of anyone-- she felt the first sob burst from her throat. 

“I --” The lights cut off again and Richard cursed. 

“I will be back,” he said. “I would advise you, for your own sake, to stay here rather than take your chances out there. Some of these men can be brutes.” And he swept out of the tent, leaving Jed alone in the dark.

Not thirty seconds later, a hand came down over her mouth and she twisted sharply to find Jonathan behind her, out of breath, eyes glittering in the darkness.

“Jed --”

“How can you do this to me?” she snarled, grabbing his wrist. “I am taking the fall for you and I did _not_ ask for this.”

“Jed, I know, I know, I’m so sorry,” he was saying. “I’m so sorry, but I _need_ for you to hang on--”

“Jonathan!”

“And when he comes back, I need you to pin this on Corky.” Jed stared at him.

“What?”

“Admit that you went in, but incriminate Corky.” Jonathan grabbed her shoulders. “Can you do that for me?” But Jed didn’t get a chance to reply because he started and said, “someone’s coming.” He pressed his lips to her forehead swiftly. “I love you. I’m so sorry.” 

And then he was heading out the back of the tent, but to Jed, it seemed as though he had melted into the night itself.

_“I love you. I’m so sorry.”_

_How dare he drag me into his world._

The tent flap moved and Richard reappeared. 

“Looks like we’re in the dark for now, Jeds,” he said. He knelt down in front of her, just a black shape in more blackness. “Have you had time to think?” Jed coughed and forced her voice to work. 

“I… yes.” She felt Richard tense in front of her and fought the urge to bolt as she pressed on. “Yes. I broke into your office. I -- I took some photos of the -- of some of the papers… I just -- I just wanted to know what you were doing.”

“And what did you do after?”

“Um -- Corky found them. On my phone.” 

“Corky?” There was a different note in Richard’s voice, almost like disbelief, or perhaps suspicion. Jed’s pulse roared in her ears.

“He -- he told me to be more careful.”

“And you deleted them?”

Jed shook her head, feeling tears slip down her cheeks. 

“No. Corky did. He said he wanted to make sure I did it.”

There was a long, terrible pause as Richard regarded her.

“I see,” he said at last. And then he enveloped her in an embrace, tight yet no longer comforting. “I’m sorry, darling,” he murmured into her collarbone. “I was too hasty.” 

Part of her screamed to run, find Jonathan, and leave immediately. Another part of her, far more vocal and heeded more often, whispered for her to capitulate. _Just hang in there,_ she told herself. 

“It’s alright,” she murmured against his temple. “I forgive you.” She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, but it was too late to take them back. 

“I really am sorry.” He caressed her unhurt cheek. “I’ll better to you, I promise.”

Another sob worked its way through her throat and he kissed her, hands moving to the back of her head. She interpreted it for what it usually was; slipping the strings of her camisole off her shoulders, she lay back across the bed. But he just stroked her hair.

“It’s alright, Jeds. I’ll let you sleep.”

Jed shook silently, tears falling over her temples into her hair. She wanted to love him so badly. And these displays of tenderness were like stab wounds. With a kiss pressed to her forehead, Richard quietly left the tent, letting Jed lay on her side and cry until she fell asleep, her hand clamped over her mouth to muffle the sounds.

 

She was woken by a clamor of voices outside her tent and before she was fully awake, the tent flaps drew back and two men from the camp burst in, supporting Jonathan between them, Richard following closely. It was only then that Jed noticed that the power had come back on, and that Jonathan’s hands were covered in blood.

“What is this, what’s --”

“I’m sorry, Jeds, I’m afraid we need the bed,” Richard said. Jed scrambled off and Jonathan was carefully seated there. “Now,” he said, sitting beside him, “tell me what happened out there.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jonathan said, staring blankly in front of him. “I didn’t mean to --”

“ _Andrew_ ,” Richard said, and the two men standing at the tent entrance exchanged glances as their employer’s hand went to Jonathan’s cheek, the other to his thigh. “I don’t care what you do as long as you keep working with me.” He turned to the men. “You can leave.” They nodded and withdrew. Back to Jonathan. “Now tell me how this happened.”

“I…” Jonathan stopped and caught his breath. “I caught Corky sneaking out of the camp. He -- he gave something to one of the cab drivers, who drove off pretty quickly.” He gulped hard. “He saw me and… and we fought.”

Jed caught her breath. So that was why his hands were so bloody. Richard sat back.

“So Corky was the rat.” As Jonathan nodded, Jed noticed the strangeness of the sentence. _So Corky_ was _the rat_. Something twisted in her gut and suddenly she understood why Jonathan looked so sick, why it had seemed that his legs couldn’t support him, why he hadn’t looked anyone in the eye since they’d brought him in. 

Richard was talking to her.

“I owe you another apology.” She shook her head.

“It’s fine,” she whispered. 

“Are you hurt?” This was to Jonathan.

“He hit pretty hard, yeah.”

“Can you walk?”

“Limp more like, but yeah.”

“Alright.” Richard pressed his lips to Jonathan’s forehead in a bizarre display of tenderness -- _he’s really doing a Jekyll and Hyde tonight,_ Jed thought. “Go shower. Everything will be cleared up before you get out, I promise. Can you do that for me?”

Jonathan nodded and stood unsteadily, making for the outside and, beyond that, the communal showers. Richard called after him. 

“Hey. Use mine.”

Jonathan paused and then nodded. When he had gone, this time for Richard’s private shower, Richard went to Jed.

“How are you?” he asked. She shrugged. “Be kind to him, won’t you?” he continued, putting his arms around her. “It’s been a busy night.” 

“What exactly has happened?” Jed asked and Richard glanced at the entrance of the tent, his brow furrowing.

“Corky was our turncoat,” he said shortly.

“ _Was_ our turncoat?”

“He’s dead. Andrew… dealt with him.”

She’d known it already, but hearing it from Richard’s mouth made it far more real. Some part of her had desperately wanted to believe that Jonathan was, well, _safe_. And now here was the raw truth: both men dealt in the violence, one in metal and bullets, the other the human commodity. She’d been so taken in by the wide-eyed boy she went to bed with every night that she’d forgotten he had a job to do. The disillusionment hurt.

 

She saw him later in the shower, scrubbing fiercely at his hair. The spray hid all damning evidence, but Jed knew from his shaking shoulders and the sounds he was trying to muffle that he was crying. He looked up, met her gaze with red eyes, and it seemed to her that he was making a plea for her to help him.

They gazed at each other, simple recognition between two broken trophies.

The spray was lukewarm running to cold when she stepped beneath it, wrapping her arms around him; he buried his face in her neck, clinging in desperation. Holding him, Jed tried to be the strength he needed and knew that she was not, in the end, enough. 

 

If Richard noticed her wet chemise later that night, he said nothing of it. Gathering them both close on the bed that was much too small to hold all three, he kissed them both -- on the forehead, not the lips -- and then there was silence, as everyone tried to brave sleep on their own. Sex was, by unspoken agreement, out of the question for that night. But, as Jed twisted her hand with Jonathan’s still-shaking one over Richard’s chest, she knew that none of them would rest easily.

 

Out of the desert and into Cairo, the Nefertiti Hotel looming palatially before them. Various bellboys scrambled to collect their luggage; Jed noticed out of her periphery the carefully-constructed calm with which Jonathan gazed around the lobby, mirrored sunglasses hiding all emotion.

But their suite really was gorgeous, with all the carved wood and silk covering the walls. Richard wasted no time in inviting Jonathan in. He looked less self-assured than normal, taking the suite in, sunglasses now stowed in his pocket.

“The Hatshepsut suite,” Richard was saying. “Best one in the hotel, I think. Or one of the best.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s right.” Jonathan was staring at a spot before the bed and so was surprised when Richard tilted his chin up and kissed him.

After everything that had happened over the last week, Jed felt more inclined towards a quick fuck, where she could gain some semblance of control and could work out her feelings. But clearly all Richard wanted to do was make love. To Jonathan.

Sitting back in a nearby armchair, she did her best to push away all her thoughts surrounding the two of them and just enjoy watching as Richard made short work of their clothes-- _“That really is a lovely suit”_ \-- and brought him to the bed. But that was impossible now. And yet… they were so tender with each other, with hips working lazily, smiles, and mouths moving against mouths, jaws, throats, shoulders...

Jonathan twisted his head to the side, allowing Richard greater access to the vein on the side of his neck, and after a moment Jed realized he was staring at the same spot as before, eyes wide as his body shifted back and forth in time with Richard’s thrusts. He was flushed, but there was a deadness in his eyes that made that flush appear feverish. His eyes were fixed on that spot on the floor.

He whispered something, barely on the edge of hearing.

“Hm?” Richard ran a hand over his thigh, pulling it higher around his hips. And Jonathan still wouldn’t look at him.

“Red,” he whispered. 

Richard pulled away without question and settled beside him, turning Jonathan’s face towards him to study him carefully, concern in his eyes. Unsure of what to do, Jed remained in the armchair as Richard pulled Jonathan close, murmuring that he was his. When Jonathan looked at her, just once, she recognized the resigned grief in his eyes too well. 

She’d seen it in her own reflection often enough. 


End file.
